Set up a Lookout

A Lookout is passive. It watches mail, feeds, or public pages and saves matches for review without acting on its own.

Use this when you want Homie to keep an eye on a topic, listing, school email, public page, or feed without taking action yet.

This is a practical page. It focuses on the controls a normal household member needs, not on how Homie is built.

Start from Lookouts, a project, Homie Mail, or chat. Name the topic, add the places Homie should check, then decide who can see matches.

- Create a Lookout with a clear title.

- Write what Homie should watch for in plain words.

- Add a mail pattern, feed, public page, or saved-search email as the source.

- Choose whether it belongs to one member or the household.

- Review observations when Homie finds matches.

- Dismiss bad matches so future review gets cleaner.

- Pause, resume, or archive the Lookout when the topic changes.

Use these controls when you want to correct Homie, reduce noise, or make the home match how the household actually works.

- Title, description, and keywords.

- Mail, feed, or public-page sources.

- Private or household visibility.

- Paused, active, or archived state.

- Whether a found mail item should attach to the Lookout.

Homie should stay honest about what changed. If an action needs a trusted device, a claimed member, or an approval, it should say so before pretending the work is done.

- It will not act when a match appears.

- It will not call, message, book, or announce without a separate promise or approval.

- It will not reliably watch pages that require an app login or block normal viewing.

- It will not treat every keyword match as important.

Private Lookouts belong to the member who owns them. Household Lookouts can surface on shared screens.

Mail that belongs to a person should stay private to that person unless it is explicitly attached to a household project or shared Lookout.

After making an operational change, do one small check. It is the easiest way to catch a wrong member, wrong device, stale link, or missing permission while the context is still fresh.

- Open the Lookout and confirm it has at least one real place to watch.

- Check whether the first observations are useful.

- Pause or archive old Lookouts so they do not clutter daily review.

Name the trigger and the action separately. A good automation request says when something should happen and what Homie should do next.

- Use words that would appear in the thing Homie is watching.

- Prefer saved-search emails for sites Homie cannot check directly.

- Turn a Lookout into a promise only when you want Homie to act.

Most Homie issues come from setup, identity, or approval state. Work through these checks before assuming Homie ignored the request.

- Check whether the request is a reminder, commitment, tracked topic, routine, or Agent Run.

- Look for an approval card if the action sends, calls, books, shares, or affects the household.

- Remember that recurring household work runs from the trusted home setup, not from a separate background helper.

Good to know: Most operational changes take effect right away on the home system, but connected accounts and devices may need a refresh or reconnect.

- Use words that would appear in the thing Homie is watching.

- Prefer saved-search emails for sites Homie cannot check directly.

- Turn a Lookout into a promise only when you want Homie to act.

- Set up a Lookout for school emails about field trips.

- Pause the apartment listing Lookout.

- Attach this mail to my plumber Lookout.